Oct. 16. 1852.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



367 



fane swearing is now generally reprobated and 

 repressed in both services ; and I know that in 

 many ships in the royal navy profane swearing is 

 never heard, and that it would be immediately 

 punished. And I hope the repression is now 

 general, and am tolerably certain that orders are 

 now very seldom " endorsed with a curse;" though, 

 perhaps, in the case of some old officer, with whom 

 the practice may have been common in his youth, 

 he may occasionally, in his anxiety for the instant 

 execution of his order, add a profane expletive 

 per incuriam. 



With regard to the army, I was just now read- 

 ing the paragraph in No. 152. to a very near con- 

 nexion of mine, now sitting beside me, who was 

 formerly in the Grenadier Guards, who tells me he 

 remembers well hearing the late Duke of Welling- 

 ton (of happy memory) say, one day, on parade 

 to his uncle, who was in command of the bat- 

 talion, " Colonel , tell Captain not to 



swear at his men as I hear him doing. I very 

 much disapprove it, and I beg that you will pre- 

 vent its happening again." To which the Colonel 

 answered, "Yes, but that officer came from the 

 Une." The Duke replied, "Oh! ah!" 



I have no doubt that the practice is now dis- 

 continued in the line, though I have of late had no 

 opportunity of judging except from individual 

 officers in private company ; and there are none of 

 my acquaintance who wouhl not think it totally 

 "unworthy of their dignity" to use a profane oath 

 in common conversation. J. S. s. 



Was this custom really so bad in England, that 

 It required an act an parliament to put it down ? * 

 I have a small volume, called A short and modest 

 Vindication of the common Practice of Cursing and 

 Swearing; occasioned by a new Act of Parliament 

 against the said Practice. By a Gentleman. Lon- 

 don, printed for J. Robinson, at the Golden Lion, 

 in Ludgate-street. No date. 



[* An act against swearing and cursing was passed 

 in 21 James I. c. 20. ; and another, for the more ef- 

 fectually suppressing cursing and swearing, 6 & 7 Will. 

 & Mary, c. 11. Both these, however, were repealed 

 by 19 Geo. II. c. 21. s. 15., and another passed "more 

 effectually to prevent profane swearing," which was 

 ordered to be read quarterly in all parish churches and 

 public chapels. A curious case of the non-observance 

 of this clause is noticed in the Ge7it. Mag., vol. xlii. 

 p. 339. : — "On July 6, 1772, a rich vicar and a poor 

 curate paid into the hands of the proper officer 15/. ; 

 the first lOZ., the latter 51, for neglecting to read in 

 church the act against cursing and swearing. The 

 vicar, it seems, had, without assigning any reason, dis- 

 missed the curate from his church, and the sons of the 

 latter informed against the former, without knowing 

 that their father lay under the same predicament." 

 This clause, however, was repealed by 4 Geo. IV. 

 «. 31. — Ed,] 



Query, Who wrote this, and when was it 

 printed ? S. Wmsoh. 



Glasgow. 



ON THE WORLD LASTING 6000 TEAES. 



(Vol. v., p. 441. ; Vol. vi., pp. 37. 131. 255.) 



The original passage, quoted from the Rabbin- 

 ical writer Elias, may be found in the Heptaplus 

 of Pico della Mirandola (lib. vii. chap, vi.), who 

 renders the Hebrew — " Verbum verbo reddens" 

 — thus : 



" Sex mille annorum mundus. Duo mille inane. 

 Duo mille lex. Duo mille dies Messias, et propter 

 peccata nostra quas sunt multa prasterierunt de eis quae 

 preterierunt." 



Swan, in his Speculum Muvdi, Camb. 1635, takes 

 considerable pams to prove the chronological 

 errors involved in this theory, and shrewdly inti- 

 mates, that the Jews could not have put much 

 faith in it, or they would not have disputed the 

 advent of the Messiah. 



The reason assigned for the duration of the 

 world being limited to 6000 years was, that the 

 period of its existence should correspond with the 

 time passed in its creation ; and as the seventh day 

 from the commencement of creation was the secu- 

 lar day of rest, so the seventh day, or thousand 

 year, from the creation would be the eternal 

 heavenly rest, — a day and a thousand years being 

 considered coequal, according to the words of the 

 inspired Psalmist : " For a thousand years are in 

 thy sight as yesterday when it is past." Ps. xc. 4. 



Nearly all the Patristic writers were of this 

 opinion, which, to them, was strengthened by the 

 Apostle Peter, who, in his Second Epistle, iii. 8., 

 when speaking of the end of the world, says : " Be 

 not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with 

 the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand 

 years as one day." 



Jerome thus alludes to these passages in his 

 commentary on the 90th Psalm : 



" Ego arbitror ex hoc loco, et ex epistola quae 

 nomine Petri inscribitur, mille annos pro una die 

 solitos appellari: ut scilicet, quia mundus in sex diebus 

 fabricatus est, sex millibus tantum annorum credatur 

 subsistere ; et postea venire septenarium numerum et 

 octonarium, in quo verus exercetur Sabbatisraus, et. 

 circumcisionis puritas redditur." 



Irenasus, Contra Hcereses, lib. v,, writes : 



" Quotquot enim diebus his factus est mundus, tot 

 et millenis annis consummatur. Et propter hoc ait 

 Scriptura Geneseos. \_Here he quotes Genesis ii. 1,2.] 

 Hoc autem est et antefactorum narratio, quemadmo- 

 dum facta sunt, et futurorum prophetia. Si etenim 

 dies Domini quasi mille anni, in sex autem diebus 

 consummata sunt quae facta sunt : manifestum est quo- 

 niam consummatio ipsorum sextus millesimus annus 

 est." 



